What I Like about Me by Jenna Guillaume is one of the funniest books I have read in a while. I literally laughed out loud (okay...I actually snorted some too) while reading it. My students kept looking at me funny, but I didn't care, I had to keep reading. The book is actually a journal (discovery journal) sixteen-year-old Maisie Martin has been assigned to do for school while heading to her annual winter family vacation in Australia, which is more like our summer vacations here with the beach, sunbathing, boardwalks, and lots of friends. Every year her favorite part of vacation is seeing her oh-so-hot childhood friend and crush Sebastian, and he just keeps getting hotter. Her best friend Anna just had the worst breakup so to cheer her up, she brings her along. The problem? Anna is "perfect", and Maisie is a self-described fat girl with fairly low self-esteem. That leaves Maisie stuck with Sebastian's pain-in-the-rear bff Beamer...not exactly the vacation she was looking forward to. Add to that the obvious tension between her parents (her dad didn't even bother going on the family vacation!), her perfect pageant-queen, semi-professional dancer sister she isn't speaking to, and just the whole idea of being a fat teen on the beach, this vacation is not ideal. So what does Maisie do? Enter the biggest pageant around. Why not? Her sister did it and so can she, maybe.
The complete honesty in this book is what made me love it. Yes, sometimes it's cheesy (and Guillaume owns it), but it's mostly embarrassing, awkward, and full of feels. Just the way teens are. Overall, Maisie learns to love herself the way she is while realizing no one is perfect. I can't wait to get this in my library. #WhatILikeAboutMe #JennaGuillaume #NetGalley Release date: April 1st, 2020

I cannot resist the charm of Aussie representation combines with YA romance, pageant competition’s vicious, hair pulling, nail scratching rivalry and great messages about fat shaming!

This is sweet, swoony, soft, lovely escape with cute, relatable, interesting characters, moving story. Maise’s struggles to find her place of school, her insecurities, heartbreak when she’s losing her love of her life to her friend are center of the story, blemished with great side characters. And at some parts of course you have every right to punch Beamer’s face.

Of course the ending is predictable, cheesy and full of cliché but that is okay for me and who cares? It is still sweet, entertaining, feel-good, enjoyable reading makes you smile and enlightens your day.

3.5 stars rounded up 4. Normally I’m tougher grader but as I said before I wanted to read more Aussie authors get representation and release more books. I loved their way of approach the things and positive, heartfelt, sweet energy reflected into their words.

Special thanks to NetGalley and Myrick Marketing/Peachtree Publishing for sharing this enjoyable ARC with me in exchange my honest review.

#Netgalley #Whatilikeaboutme
Thank you to netgalley and the publisher of What I Like About Me for the opportunity to review this e-arc copy. It's a great fun read about how growing up and learning about our self all while trying to find are footing in life. Acceptance of ourselves is the hardest part.

I found this book to be relatively good. I liked the concept of the novel... the main character overcomes her lack of self-confidence and self-loathing and she begins to slowly like herself over the course of the novel which in turn allows her to let others like her as well. I found it to be relatable on a personal level and feel as though many others will also be able to relate due to society and the ridiculous standards that are set for us on a daily basis to achieve the perfect body type.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!

This is a great teen read for focusing on being body positive and loving yourself even if you don't seem to fit into the world. Maisie very much reminder me of a teenage Bridget Jones! She is so spunky and fun and I think there are a lot of teens who can relate to this book. Being okay with yourself and your body as a teenager is hard enough, but being considered overweight makes it even harder. Society tells you that you need to look a certain way which isn't true. I think as long as you are healthy and true to yourself that's better than trying to be like or look like everyone else.

What I Like About Me is told through the journal entries of Maisie Martin over the course of her family vacation, a journal she doesn't want to write in because it is required for school. She narrates in a quirky, humorous manner while keeping a realistic teenage tone. It really felt like getting a glimpse of a teenage girl's diary. 

Maisie is on vacation at the beach with her mother; her father was unable to come because of work. Based on early journal entries, she and her mother have a slightly strained relationship—not one broken beyond repair, but a relationship stretched thin by the nature of being a parent and a teenage child. Also along for the ride is Anna, Maisie's best friend who just went through a breakup. Later, Maisie's sister Eva and Eva's girlfriend Bess join them.

Maisie's journal entries, which include things she discovered about life or herself (it's called a discovery journal, after all), detail what she did each day of the vacation, and they also shed light on her concerns. She is worried that her parents might get a divorce because they haven't been talking much and her dad has often been unreachable. She doesn't really know what to do about her feelings for Beamer and their blossoming relationship. She has second thoughts about the pageant. She feels like she and Anna are drifting apart. She doesn't  know how to interact with her sister because of a falling out they had a few years ago, in which they were going to enter the pageant together but Eva entered by herself because she didn't think Maisie could win. 

There were many times when this book made me cringe, painfully embarrassed on behalf of Maisie—in the best possible way. The angst and dramatic writing and the way she describes them are exactly how I wrote/talked when I was a teenager, and though it is still cringe-inducing even in a fictional setting, the way Maisie writes is incredibly realistic.

What I Like About Me was a fantastic and sweet book about what it's like to be a teenager who struggles with body image. Maisie's journey of coming to love herself is inspiring and, like her writing, relatable. The main theme of self-love is perfectly complemented by side themes of friendship, sisterly love, and honesty (with yourself and others). Her highs and lows and every moment along the way had me rooting for her.

A bit of a warning: this is a YA book and there is a good bit of swearing. It's typical teenage stuff, but it could definitely be a bit too much for younger readers. Also, while I personally relate to the diary (or rather, the way it's written), I could easily see where it would quickly wear on some people's nerves. Maisie is sarcastic and dramatic and angsty, and if that's not what you're expecting from the book, it could get old very quickly. Maisie also has very low opinion  of herself and puts herself down, including body shaming comments.

Easy 5 stars, and a book I'll be buying for my 16-year-old sister named Maisy!

What I Like About Me by Jenna Guillaume, 304 pages. LGBTQIA+
Peachtree Publishing, 2020. $18.
Language: R (106 swears, 16 “f”); Mature Content: PG13; Violence: PG
BUYING ADVISORY: HS - OPTIONAL
AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE
Discovery: Maisie, age 16, is not thrilled about this vacation. Evidence: Ms. Singh assigned homework over the break in the form of a daily discovery journal -- a journal that Maisie’s mother is going to check on every day. Also, Maisie’s dad didn’t come on their annual Christmas trip, which Maisie is pretty sure is a sign of impending divorce. Meanwhile, Maisie’s best friend Anna did come on the trip, which should be a good thing, but Anna is totally flirting with Maisie’s crush Sebastian! Oh, and Maisie has terrible self-esteem, but that’s always been there.
This book highlights all the reasons that I don’t love journal-style novels. Maisie introduces topics and skips over scenes in the moment to fill in the readers later, making the story more choppy and quasi-suspenseful than is preferred. While I love the message of Maisie’s story -- that we need to love ourselves regardless of how we physically compare to others and the current standard of beauty -- the execution of Maisie’s journal and a lot of Maisie’s choices on the way to that important realization is mediocre. The mature content rating is for underage drinking, innuendo, implied sex, and nudity.
Reviewer: Carolina Herdegen

Wow. Just wow. I literally read this book in one and a half sittings (had a flight connection thus the half..). This book is about Maisie who is a teen going through teen stuff - body images, family issues, relationship woes. All the things every teen goes through in her/his lifetime. This book is absolutely remarkable and reminds people that you are your harshest critic, who cares what others think about you and it’s important to love who you are. Although this book deals with a lot (a LOT!), it’s never overwhelming or too much. As I mentioned, I could barely put this book down and would recommend it to anyone and everyone.

A fun quirky book. It starts off hilarious and I feel like its a book that is very diverse in topics. Jenna Guilluaume did a great job developing characters and plot.

I was expecting this book to be for middle grades, but it was clearly not appropriate for that age group based on the content (language, sexual innuendo, etc).

I liked the message of being brave and accepting who you are! Maisey is a 16yr old plus size girl. She’s having BFF, family, and boy drama over her winter holiday. She documents it all in the journal she’s expected to write in for class. I enjoyed seeing her grow in her self confidence.

Thank you net galley for the advance reader copy of this novel. This was a contemporary YA novel that was about a girl coming to terms with her body and choices all on vacation at the beach while entered into a beauty pageant. This book has several usual YA themes like self esteem, a gay sibling, and family drama. The author used a journal format to tell this story and it works well for main character, Maises voice, Overall an ok read due to language, and overplayed YA tropes.

I enjoyed this book for what it was. I think I would've been disappointed had I not read the summary of what the book was about but I enjoyed it for what I expected the book to be. The writing was easy to follow and I can see this one being a well-liked read.

What I Like about Me is a book with a cute plot. However, I do not think it should be classified under children's literature. There is A LOT of adult language in this book. I don't mind a few curse words in a YA book, but this book had it all the time. The 'f-word' was even utilized multiple times.

It really is a bummer that the language was included in this book. The story is a cute coming-of-age story that I think would have been absolutely relatable to so many students had the language never been included. Because of that, I cannot bring this book into my classroom.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher, I received an eArc of this book in exchange for a honest review.

I feel as if I went into this ready to absolutely love it, and came out of it not sure how to feel. There was just something about this book that I didn’t totally fall in love with. It was a good book, don’t get me wrong, but it wasn’t the five star read I was thinking it was going to be for me.

I’m always looking for the fat girl representation. In a lot of books I feel that the characters are just considered “fat” but are not actually. In this one the girl really is — there are several scenes that really set up she is a big girl — and I really liked those portions because it is so relatable for people like me who struggle to find sizes in stores that don’t look like brown paper bags.

I really appreciated the body positivity in this book — there was nothing in it that made me annoyed at that type of representation. There was quite a bit of diversity in this book, and I was pleased with that.

As I read this I felt just a bit disconnected at times, and I can’t quite put my finger on why that was. There was something that wasn’t there for me.

Other things I liked in this book were the descriptions of friendship, and how there are struggles and happiness.

As someone who went through a friendship situtation/body issues as a teenager, I really felt for Maisie. I could really connect with those feelings. Unlike Maisie however I have not met a friend who is so body positive.

The book was really about her journey over the course of a summer, and it was written in diary form. I think that was what really made me pause — I was having issues with the formatting of the diary, and it felt at times disconnected.

Overall, I think this was a light, fluffy read that a lot of people are going to enjoy!

Assigned to keep a journal over Christmas break, Maisie Martin spends her vacation reflecting on her family issues, her crush on her childhood friend, and tackling her own self-esteem troubles in light of a beauty pageant that was once a dream she and her now estranged sister shared.

Although I am not a fan of the diary format, Maisy's voice shines in this novel. I love how she ends up tacking her body image issues by focusing on the things she likes about herself. This book has a very positive message for young women today, both for those who fit and those who don't fit the modern standard of beauty.

I wasn't a huge fan of the narrative voice and diary format of this story, but enjoyed the story itself. I really enjoyed the exploration of self-hate, self acceptance, and the influence of friends and family in regards to body image and self-confidence. I enjoyed Maise's growth. This story was predictable but feel good and I think it's important to have more books featuring fat characters where the main goal isn't to lose weight.

I adored this. An amazing self-esteem centered story told through journal entries, and I absolutely fell in love with this format. I think this is an important book for readers.

Nice first person narrative of a Australian Summer vacation (in other words over Xmas break), and what happened with a crush, and a competitive sisters, and fighting parents.

Masie has to keep a journal, while she is on break, and although she resists it at first, as life continues to throw things at her, she confides more and more in it.

Her best friend just had a break-up.

Her crush since childhood seems more interested in her best friend.

And she meets a girl who sees the beauty in her, and encourages her to enter a beauty contest, despite she being a bit on the plus size.

All very realistic, and Masie's voice is very natural. Well written. Good story.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

This novel was an absolute delight! I flew through it and honestly really enjoyed every page. I tend to stay away from self-image-centric books because yikes. I'd rather not go there. But this one was really good at spreading the body-positive message without being overbearing.

The plot, while quite predictable, was still super cute and fun. I honestly didn't mind that I knew pretty much exactly what was going to happen. It was fun to read regardless. The writing reminded me a lot of Carolyn Mackler or Sarah Dessen, and reading What I Like About Me felt like I was reading some of my first YA books again. Man, nostalgia. Somehow this book is ultra on par with pop culture while still making me ache for the times when I was a young teen.

What I Like About Me is laugh-out-loud funny (seriously!), profound without trying, and an all 'round Good Book. Definitely check it out if you're a YA fan!

A wonderful book about acceptance in all forms - body acceptance, self-esteem, relationships, family, friendships. I hope we hear more from Jenna Guilluaume!